Host a High-Tech Summer Party with Smart Home Solutions

Summer is in full swing, and that means opportunities to entertain outdoors abound. Your calendar app is likely filling up fast with events that take advantage of lovely warm-weather evenings. In fact, you may plan to host a few yourself.

To that end, we’ve identified some fun, smart home technology that will aid you in throwing the summer fete of the season.

Mood Lighting

We’ve often used this space to sing the virtues of smart lighting—but almost always from a utilitarian perspective. How great is it, for example, that you can sync your home’s lights to your smart watch and automatically set your abode aglow each morning as you awaken?

Nanoleaf Aurora offers something a bit different. Sure, it provides the primary function of any piece of lighting (to provide light), but Nanoleaf Aurora also allows users to get creative—and is a unique way to set some mood for your summer party.

Consisting of a series of modular, flat-panel, triangle shaped lights, Nanoleaf Aurora allows users to construct wall-hanging lighting structures of their own devising and bring them to life with over 16 million colors.

Users can set the Aurora to a solid spectrum, or send it looping through an endless array of color—or both, as making changes to the Aurora’s color design is as simple as a swipe on your smartphone or a word with Siri.

And it’s a surefire way to separate your party from the crowd.

Nanoleaf Aurora sells a starter kit for $199 that comes with nine tiles. Three tile expansion packs are available for $59.

The Songs of Summer

With lighting set, the greater mood mitigator can now be addressed—music.

You certainly have some soundscape in mind, so we won’t advise you on what to play, but rather what to play it on.

If the thought of moving your entire, top-of-the-line sound system outside for a single party wasn’t daunting enough, imagine your solid set-up going completely kaput thanks to an errant water balloon, the splash from an overly enthusiastic cannonball or, simply, a spilled pitcher of sangria.

Best to go with a system that is built for outdoor entertaining, and for that we recommend the Hatteras from Acoustic Research.

This nearly 2-foot tall standing speaker is weather-resistant, easily pairs with the device of your choosing, be it phone, tablet, or computer, and promises 40 watts of true stereo four-way sound—home theater quality—for your outdoor affair.

Better still, it comes with a 360º area light with multiple modes, making it yet another weapon in your arsenal of light design.

The Acoustic Research Hatteras is available for $219.

Frozen Treats

Jimmy Buffett is many things to many people—entertainer, entrepreneur, owner of a chain of mid-market family-style restaurants.

It is in his second role that we are primarily interested in this modern day Renaissance man, as Mr. Buffett is the maker, via his Margaritaville brand, of a fine frozen drink machine.

Nothing pairs better with a summer party than an ice-based, alcoholic beverage and Mr. Buffett’s beauty, the Margaritaville Tahiti Frozen Concoction Maker, will have you making frosty drinks easily and in an entertaining fashion.

This delightful device can whip up daiquiris, coladas, mojitos, mudslides, smoothies and margaritas—and better still it will make them with minimal labor on your part.

Simply add the ingredients and ice, select that desired drink, and the Tahiti will do the rest, pouring a pitcher’s worth of frosty, layered libations.

The Tahiti can fill three separate pitchers, with different frozen drinks if so desired, in a single sitting, making variety, at least alcoholic variety, the spice of your party from the outset.

The Margaritaville Tahiti Frozen Concoction Maker is available for $499.

Entertain Yourself

If you’re the type of host who likes a certain level of "organized fun" at their affair, then the Singtrix Party Bundle Premium may be a nice fit.

The home karaoke system packs a level of professionalism that is something to behold. Not only will the Singtrix allow you to use any karaoke program or app, on any device (phone, tablet, computer), offering simple set-up before singing, but the system will make you sound better, too.

In addition to packing over 300 effects, the Singtrix will provide natural pitch-correction and it allows users access to an auto-tune equivalent as well as automatic four-part harmonization for a single singer (when warranted).

The culmination of all these effects creates the best effect of the Singtrix—it will allow the less confident singers at your soiree to launch into Neil Diamond’s "Forever in Blue Jeans" with full abandon.

The Singtrix Party Bundle Premium Edition Home Karaoke System is available on Amazon for $348.